1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to providing location-specific information. More particularly, this invention relates to a beacon-based electronic guide system that provides information about landmarks associated with a specific location.
2. Description of the Related Art
When people visit an area (e.g., a city, a park, an island, or a historical site), they want to go and see various tourist attractions within that area. For example, when people visit the city of San Francisco, they typically want to see the famous Golden Gate Bridge, the Fisherman's Wharf, and the Alcatraz Island. When people visit the Yosemite National Park located in the state of California, they want to see various landscapes within the Park, including the Half Dome, the El Capitan, the Cathedral Rock, the Yosemite Falls, and the Bridal Veil Falls. One way of seeing these tourist attractions is to go to the exact locations of these attractions. Another way is to go to some observation (i.e., viewing or vista) points to view these tourist attractions. This is due to the fact that many of these tourist attractions (e.g., the Golden Gate Bridge, the Alcatraz Island, and the Half Dome) can also be viewed from distance.
When a person looks at a tourist attraction at a distant observation point, the person typically would also like to get some descriptive information about the attraction. For example, when a visitor is looking at the Golden Gate Bridge, the visitor would like to know some background information about the Bridge. The background information may describe the structure of the Bridge (e.g., cable-suspension or arched), the year the Bridge was built, the architect who designed the Bridge, and the material (e.g., steel cables) used to build the Bridge, etc. The background information may also include a map showing the area, or a graphical illustration of the Bridge.
In order to provide the information, a guidepost or a plaque containing the background information is typically raised either at an observation point or at the site of the Bridge. Similarly, guideposts, signposts, and/or plaques have been provided at various observation points in the Yosemite National Park, as well as other tourist attraction areas.
However, this mechanism of providing background or descriptive information using guideposts bears many disadvantages. One disadvantage is that a physical board needs to be permanently erected at the observation point to form the guidepost. The background or descriptive information is then made (e.g., inscribed, imprinted, impressed, or posted) on the board. This typically requires human resources to complete the job. In addition, regular and periodical maintenance is typically required to fend off any damage to the posted information that may be caused by natural erosion and/or human vandalism. This also requires significant human resources.
Another disadvantage is that each physical board can only be viewed by one individual or a relatively small group of people at a time. To allow for a larger crowd to read the posted information, many more boards may need to be erected at the site. This again requires resources. In addition, many man-made or artificial objects at the site of the observation points may adversely affect the surrounding landscape.
A further disadvantage is that manual update is typically required if the posted information needs to be updated. In this case, a human being must come to the site and physically updates the information on the display board. This means that the information updating process is a long and slow process, which does not provide people with accurate information cost-effectively and efficiently.
As the cost of labor continues to increase, this mechanism of providing background or descriptive information using guideposts may be prohibitively costly. Thus, there exists a need for a better and improved mechanism to post information efficiently and effectively.